


someday (my prince will come)

by lumailia



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Angst, Dream fluff, F/M, M/M, NB/genderfluid robin, Sort of reincarnation AU, baby's first chrobin, dream fics, or you can pretend it's M or F robin, this is the most fanfic fanfic ive ever written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 09:41:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18206768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lumailia/pseuds/lumailia
Summary: Robin can't stop dreaming about a certain Prince. The only problem? He probably doesn't exist.





	someday (my prince will come)

**Author's Note:**

> I did this as a request for emis on tumblr that got way out of hand! But I looooove chrobin and was so excited to finally write for them. Expect more once I wrap up my RWBY fics. I hope you enjoy, and feel free to follow my fea blog chrobinmyheart or my twitter @lumailia

_hiraeth: a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past_

The dreams always started in violet.

            Sometimes, it was in the flowers. They grew in vibrant clusters over fields Robin had never seen, one flash of color in a world that was too saturated to be real. Other times, it was on the walls, falling in heavy tapestries over opal-flecked stone. It would be on their coat, too, and in the sash they tied around their waist as they walked down the aisle, chest tight with nerves and affection. Yes, the tapestries were always in the wedding dreams. Robin remembered it best, though, when it was in the air. Violet, the color of royalty. Of passion. Of despair. It was everywhere, bleeding in heavy clouds across their vision as they trudged towards a silhouette at the end of the hall. The regal figure, crowned in spectral light, drew them in on an invisible reel. So many times, they tried to resist, to avert the dream’s long-rehearsed end, but it was futile.

            Robin came closer, until the light stretched in from behind him, carving his face in dramatic shadows. He was so beautiful. He was always beautiful. Robin didn’t know his name, but they knew they loved him. Not only for his beauty, which alone was enough to make their heart stir and ache, but for his devotion, the promises he whispered to them when the world was asleep and war had hidden itself in the shadows.

            _You are the wind at my back and the sword at my side, and together, we can build a peaceful world, my love. Just you and me._

            If only they could bottle those words, taste them like a kiss forever and ever.

           There was fire in Robin’s hands. Lightning danced down their jagged blade and into their fingers, burning to join with the darkness within him. That was the other thing. The darkness. In some dreams, it bloomed slowly, merely cloying at the corners of their mind, but in this one, it was an infestation. It guided their legs, their hands. Their heart resisted, but always, the darkness won.

           The Prince stepped closer. He held out a hand, his mouth upturned in a pained smile. “We can’t keep waiting, Robin,” he said, and they nearly gasped at the intensity that scored their name. “Now is our chance to get the upper hand.”

           For a heartbeat, Robin took back the reins, stifled the darkness. They loved the Prince. They would take their hand and fight with them, and at the battle’s end, ring in the new, peaceful world he’d promised them. But the same story demanded to be told. The Fell Dragon wove his shadows through his vessel’s veins and pried apart their ribs with his claws, sealing Robin’s soul off from their heart. Ruby tears fell in perfect lines, and four scathing eyes opened on Robin’s cheeks. The Prince lost his smile.

           “Robin, what are you…”

           Violet ripened into bloody red, and as the last of their body surrendered, Robin buried their lightning in the Prince’s heart.  

+

            The Prince’s anguished face haunted Robin into their waking hours. They had a day off today, which usually meant tidying the apartment, maybe taking a trip to a coffee shop with a book or two in their satchel, but they couldn’t draw themself out of bed. It was _that_ dream again, the one where they became some kind of hero, or villain, and killed the man they loved. They couldn’t count how many times they’d had that dream—or any dream about that man, with his kind eyes and affirming words.

            Soon, they pushed the horror from their mind, and drifted into memories of the happier dreams, the ones where they were marrying him, or playing with their children in a field.        

            The dream Prince was Robin’s favorite secret. A tragedy, in some ways, but something precious nonetheless. For the rest of the night, and every night Robin had the nightmare, they were simply content to soak in the phantom sensation of being loved—as far as Robin could tell, it was never happening in real life. They might as well enjoy it in their daydreams.

+

            In another dream, their hair was long and white, tied into twin ponytails and tumbling over their shoulders, split ends clinging to the outline of their hips. Violet light pulsed up from the dancefloor, streamed from spotlights mounted to the ceiling. Robin had their drink—something fruity and half-empty—in one hand, a silent phone in another. They twirled between bodies. Drank. Twirled again, body privy to the music. A third drunken pirouette sent them right into the chest of a stranger, and they sloshed their drink all over the floor.

            It was him. It was _always_ him. The club lights made lightning streaks through his bluish hair and caught in fragments in his dark eyes, and Robin’s plastic cup bounced to the floor.

            He watched it fall. Looked back to them. “You know, if you were done with your drink, I’m sure someone else would happy to finish it.”

            Robin’s face scrunched. “That’s not very sanitary.”

            “And that’s not what people come here for,” he says. His eyes, framed in unfairly long lashes, trailed to a couple pressed against the music bar. They licked each other’s lips, and Robin shuddered.

            They turned back to the boy. “I hate to admit you have a point.”

            “Wanna dance?” he asked, extending a hand.

            “I mean, that is what _I’m_ here for.”

            Robin slipped their phone into their shorts and took his hand. The music in the club had changed from thrumming hip-hop to a peppy Miami reggaeton, which guided them in sultry, fluid movements, all swaying hips and quick steps. He was good dancer. Of course he was. If he didn’t look so good under those lights, Robin might have it in them to be mad at him for it.

            The song drifted into its bridge, and the boy pulled them closer, his hand stretched over their lower back.

            Robin didn’t know who kissed who first, and they didn’t care. All they knew was one moment, they were swaying with their foreheads together, and they next, they’d stopped in the middle of the dance floor, kissing like lovers. The music bled into the frantic drumming of their pulse in their ears. Were people staring? Would he take them home tonight? Was it a problem that that’s what they wanted?

            When they separated, the boy fastened a hand around their wrist and gestured to a back exit. Robin nodded, and he walked them out of the club and into another lurid, sunny morning in a world without him.

+

            That was the first dream Robin had where the two of them kissed, and the fifth time that they’d had it. After the first time, they grew their hair out for four months, hoping to get it to that enviable length—as if it might summon _him,_ if they looked like that—but the everyday heat proved too much. They took the kitchen scissors, cut their silvery locks back to their chin, and life went on.

            Yet the dreams kept coming. It felt as though they were living with their left foot in one life, the right in the other. Whatever side had their Prince, that was where they wanted to be. No matter for how long, no matter if the darkness came back.

            Just to know him. That was what they wanted the most. What was that theory they’d read once—that you had to have seen everyone who enters your dreams? That would mean they’d seen their Prince. That would mean he was out there, maybe in their city, maybe all the way across the world. The thought of their lifetimes alone intersecting filled Robin with a giddy kind of courage that brightened their step the rest of the day.

            It would be winter, soon, which wasn’t much of a change where they lived. But Robin would grow out their hair again, if only for the foolish hope that for once, things would be different.

+

            Violet returned in the flowers. They were bunched between the delicate hands of a little blue-haired girl with a boisterous smile and a wooden sword at her hip. Her father’s mark was inked into her eye, the color of night standing stark against the day, but her nose and lips were undoubtedly Robin’s. The sight of her made their heart flutter.

            “Father’s been teaching me how to swordfight,” she said, stretching her smile further across her cheeks. She’d lost one of her front teeth, but the gap had done nothing to dim her confidence. “Will you teach me to use your tomes?”

            “What do you need my tomes for?” Robin giggled. They prodded the pommel of the girl’s wooden sword. _Lucina. Your daughter’s name is Lucina._ The name fell out of nowhere, but it felt right. “You already have Ylisse’s greatest swordsman as your trainer.”

            “Yeah, but I want to learn magic, too!” With that, Lucina threw the flowers into the air as if they were the glittering sparks of a hex. “Do you think they make magic swords?”

            Robin’s lips parted in a mischievous grin. “They certainly do,” they said, tapping their daughter’s nose. “But not for you, Lucina. At least, not until you’re older.”

            “I’m going to be the best magic sword wielder _ever_!” Lucina exclaimed.

            Robin held their smile, but their shoulders sank. _I hope you never have to._

Lucina ran back into the field and drew her wooden sword, batting away invisible enemies with messy swings and tiny grunts. Peace had settled along the borders, and the halidom was in talks to restart trade. Robin could only hope the peace was more than a lull in the war—a peace with deep roots, rather than the fleeting blooms they’d had in the past.

            A sudden, cooling shadow draped over Robin’s shoulder. They turned. Their husband, the Exalt, still sweating from sparring practice, knelt in the grass beside them and planted a swift kiss on their cheek.

            “I’d was wondering where Luci ran off to,” he said. “Suppose I was right to think she’d be with you.”

            Robin reached up and smeared the sweat from his brow with her sleeve. “Did Frederick give you a hard time in training today?”

            “He wishes,” he said, but his heavy breaths betrayed him. “Don’t let Luci kill any butterflies, alright? We had a talk about that, today—friends versus foes.”

            “Oh, she wouldn’t,” Robin replied, nodding to a giddy, running Lucina. “She loves them too much.”

            Hearing them, Luci lowered her sword and spun on her heels. Her eyes crinkled in delight. “Father!”

            She dropped her sword and ran to the Exalt, jumped into his arms and flung her spindly arms around his neck. “Father, why are you so sweaty?”

            “It’s hot outside, sweetheart,” he said, laying a hand on her hair. “Spring is warming up quickly.”

            “Don’t lie to her, love. Tell her that her Uncle Frederick bested you in combat.”

            “It was a draw!” the Exalt exclaimed, and all three of them erupted into laughter.

            Lucina squirmed out of her father’s grasp and sprinted back into the field, back into war with imaginary creatures. The Prince turned to Robin. Mischief flickered across his face, and Robin, knowing this look, leaned closer. The Prince kissed Robin’s lips, and a feeling like warm sunlight poured through their veins.

            This was the future they’d fought for. Hope, stubborn and undistilled, the only thing that could drive off an arrogant darkness. It lived in them. And it lived in their daughter, their tiny warrior, who they prayed would never see a real war.

+

            Harsh daylight teased at Robin’s eyes, pulling them from sleep. They jolted into a sitting position. Just as they’d thought, they forgot to close the curtains the last night. Their eyes flickered to the alarm clock on their nightstand. Eight-thirty-five. They had work in an hour, which meant only enough time for one cup of coffee, maybe a second and a Pop Tart if they were stingy in the grooming department.

            The last thing they wanted to do was go to work. Picking ties for middle aged men and inhaling old ladies’ perfume were going to be hell compared to the dream still clinging to them. As Robin toted their coffee cup around their bathroom, doing their best to make themself presentable between sips, they felt as if they were toeing a line between worlds, each as real as the other, where one held joy and passion, and the other listless monotony.

            They brushed their teeth and spit into the sink. Looked at their tired reflection. The brown of their eyes was dull and hollow, their jaw swollen and sore from grinding their teeth in deep slumber. Customers would think they were sick, today—maybe they should just call out for the morning, go back to bed and wrap up in another dream. Maybe _he_ would be there.

            No. Robin needed to be responsible. And more than that, they needed the extra cash. They dropped their wallet and keys in their bags and shoved out the door. It was only a few city blocks from their flat to the department store where they worked. Heat swirled through the air in humid clouds, but the colors Robin passed were uncharacteristically cold, as if they were painted in fugitive pigments that had begun to wither and bleed. This was a kind of homesickness, they realized—but not for anywhere in their past. They were homesick for their dreams. A home that never was, made with a man who didn’t exist.

            Their manager put them on floor duty for the morning. Each time the door chimed, a silhouette filling up the revolving door, Robin hoped it would be him. And with each stranger who passed, their disappointment, that implacable homesickness and longing, grew. By the time their shift ended, their legs felt full of lead, their chest empty, and as they made their way home, they didn’t even care to watch the sunset flare in the skyscraper windows.

            This couldn’t be it, Robin told themself. Surely there was more in store for their life than this repetitive back and forth, days wasted in mindless routine. And surely, though they were foolish to believe it, this man from their dreams was out there somewhere.

            Maybe, he was dreaming about them, too.

+

            Tonight, the violet cocooned Robin in the form of cool silk sheets. They lay on their back, hair spread over the pillows in starlit strands, their oversized band shirt replaced with sheer, loose nightclothes. Anticipation set their heart sprinting.

            “Where’d you go, my love?” they called into the dark. “I’m here, just as you asked.”

            A candle flame sparked in the corner of the room. Golden light painted itself over the figure of the Prince, etching every plane and chisel from his face to his hips. _He’s so beautiful,_ echoed in Robin’s mind. Their breath stuttered as he came closer, his eyes half-lidded and heavy with love. Robin reached up their hand instinctively, drawn to the light, to _him._

            He set the candle on the nightstand and spread out on the bed beside them. Gently, he traced a finger around the frame of their face, down the length of their neck to their collar, over the contour of their chest to the bared cut of skin between their shorts and top.

            “Do you love me, Robin?” he asked, his voice low and startlingly soft. Robin gazed at his face, and the candle’s glow reached just far enough to illuminate the vulnerability that laid there, sculpted in a softened brow and parted lips.  

            “Of course I love you,” they replied. They didn’t even know his name, but they loved him. They were certain. “Why would you ever have to ask?”

            He slid a few fingers beneath their top, and they gasped, arching their back. “I just like to hear you say it.”

            Their Prince gripped them by their waist and fit himself over them, knees bracing their hips. With an aching slowness, he leaned down to kiss them. He was gentle—always _so_ gentle—but passion laced his kiss, a silent desire for more.

            Robin returned it. They could’ve waded in this moment forever. Kissing the Prince, his thumbs tracing circles over her ribs, his body locked over theirs like a shield—it was a fantasy brought to flesh, a feeling they wanted to cling to forever.

            His lips moved to their neck, and their breath hitched. Daring, they splayed their hands over his chest. They couldn’t believe how beautiful he was. They couldn’t believe he wanted them.

            “Where should I kiss you next, love?” he said against her jaw, then pressed another kiss there.

            Robin let their hands drift to his hair, fingers knotting in strands of soft blue. “Where do you want to kiss me?” they rasped.

            “Everywhere.”

            The blush on their neck deepened, and they brought the Prince’s lips back to their own. Against them, Robin whispered, “Alright, my love. Kiss me everywhere.”

+

            Robin woke up with scalding cheeks and shoved their forehead against their knees. They couldn’t take it anymore. They were tired of being loved and cradled and kissed in their dreams, only to wake up alone. If only they could sleep forever, slip into a dream like the last one and never have to return to this mundane, loveless life they were trapped in.

“I’m lonely,” they admitted to the silence of their room. The whisper seemed to fill every corner. _I’m lonely, and the only person who can take that away might not even be real._

            They were pathetic. They needed a change. They turned over their pillow to the cool side and smashed their face into it, muffling a scream of aggravation.

            Tonight, they wouldn’t lull themself to sleep in memories of the Prince’s kiss. This time, they would be their own hero.

+

            Two days and another passionate dream later, Robin quit their job and bought a train ticket to the countryside.

            They were departing from the third deck, which was open to the air and partitioned by brick pillars, overgrown with vines and purple flowers. It felt like a tiny taste of where Robin was going. A change of scenery, dirty sidewalks and slate-colored skyscrapers exchanged for a wide expanse of sky, was just what they needed. They wouldn’t be there forever—just a week, but it would be enough time to clear their head. Enough time to dream.

            Clutching their satchel to their side, they stepped onto the platform and waited for their train.

            A man brushed past them with a quiet, “sorry.” Robin swiveled. He was looking back at them, his blue eyes ignited by a beam of sunlight. His hair was blue, too, almost black, and the sharp lines of his jaw, his hooked nose—Robin knew him.

            Robin _loved_ him.

            “It’s…it’s you.”

            The man flinched. Blinked a few times. Robin couldn’t believe it. Here he was, the Prince in their dreams, standing mere feet from them.

            “Have we met?” he asked, pointing a finger.

            “Yes. Yes, I…I think so,” Robin stammered. “What’s your name?”

            “Uh, Chrom,” he responded, brow pulled with skepticism. “And you are?”

            _Chrom. Chrom—that sounds right._ “Robin. My name is Robin,” they rushed. They were too stunned to put much breath behind their words. _His name is Chrom. My Prince is here, and his name is Chrom. Oh Gods, I’m not crazy, after all._

            “Robin? I don’t think I know any Robins,” he said, “unless you count those birdies on the ledge over there.”

            He offered a nervous, achingly familiar laugh, but it did nothing to stop Robin’s heart from shooting to their toes. The purple blush drained from their cheeks. This was supposed to be him. _Their_ Chrom, the Prince from their dreams, the voice that cheered them and eyes that trusted them and lips that brought their body to a fever.

            “Oh, I’m sorry,” they said. They stared into the station floor and wished they could melt into the crisscrossed gaps between the bricks.

            “You, uh, look nice though?” he stutters. His eyes drifted to a nearby station clock. “I’m sorry, my train’s about to depart. It was nice to meet you, Robin! Maybe I’ll see you again sometime.”

            Crushed, all Robin could do was nod and hope he wouldn't see their hands shaking beneath their oversized sleeves.

            Chrom took off down the platform, and Robin watched him until the crowd closed around him. Tears filled their eyes, turning that same crowd to oil-painting blotches of color. What was it all for, if he hadn't dreamt of them too? How could their mind be so cruel?

            They dragged the sleeve of their coat across their face to wipe their tears. The people parted just enough for Robin to spot Chrom as he stepped into his train. Then, gripping their satchel strap so hard their knuckles whited, they turned away.

            _May we meet again, in a better life._


End file.
